09.Deep Black: Death Wave

by Stephen Coonts

  “I see it.”

  “The drop is about thirty feet, straight down. There’s a cave or a lava tube at the base of the cliff. That’s where they took Lia.”

  Dean felt cold. “I copy.”

  He watched them as they walked down the trail. He was very much tempted to take the shot, regardless of his orders.

  There was no telling how many guards might be with Lia now, though, or what they would do to her if a firefight broke out—and, far worse, the team hadn’t located the nukes yet. If the bad guys panicked, they might set something off, and that would make it a bad day for everyone.

  So Dean kept watching the three as they rounded a corner at the bottom of the path and he lost sight of them.

  “Art Room. Have you been able to reestablish communications with Lia?”

  “That’s negative, Charlie. They took her into a cave, and we lost contact. We haven’t heard a word since.”

  Dean studied the surrounding ground. He was currently at about the three o’clock position on the crater rim. If he could make his way over to about the one o’clock position, he would have a direct line of sight on the cave mouth, and he also spotted a broad, eroded gulley down the caldera’s interior slope there. The ground was broken, with lots of boulders, escarpments of bare rock, and even a few pine trees. It offered a good route for descending into the caldera.

  If he could make it without being spotted by Tango sentries or the workers near the drilling derrick.

  Quietly, he told Rodriguez what he was planning, and the Marine nodded.

  Akulinin said, “I’m in,” and the two slowly began making their way counterclockwise along the crater rim.

  LAVA TUBE

  SAN MARTIN VOLCANO, NORTH CRATER

  MONDAY, 1438 HOURS LOCAL TIME

  Lia heard the clatter of footsteps at the cave mouth and saw her two guards hastily stand and take on a look of unremitting vigilance.

  She had no idea how much time had passed since they’d brought her here. The lava tube widened slightly, creating an underground room perhaps fifteen feet across, and while enough light filtered down from the opening to illuminate her surroundings, she couldn’t see the outside, or guess at the passage of time by the movement of shadows—especially now, with those two damned lights in her eyes.

  She suspected that it had been at least two hours since she’d been brought here, which meant perhaps twenty-two hours or so since her capture. She hadn’t been mistreated in that time, exactly, other than being tied to a chair, unable to walk or lie down. There had been some psychological abuse, though. An hour ago, several men had brought in the two bright floodlights on folding tripod stands and connected them to a long power cord leading in from the outside. Then they’d set up a folding metal table against the black rock wall nearby, a six-foot-long table with several eyes attached around the edge that looked like attachment points for ropes or straps.

  After that, Feng had taken some delight in letting her know what was in store for her.

  Twenty-two hours. The question, of course, was how long it would have taken the Art Room to put together an op of some sort—either a rescue op, or a military mission to swoop in and grab the nukes. She was pretty sure most of the nukes were already here on La Palma; earlier, she’d listened in as her guards, assuming she spoke no Arabic, had chattered on about how there was only one bomb yet to put into place.

  Bill Rubens must be putting together a strike force. Hell, by now he might have the whole U.S. Marine Corps on its way.

  Assuming he’d been able to get the President’s support for military intervention, of course. She didn’t like thinking about that part of things.

  Three men entered the chamber, Feng, Azhar, and an older man in a Palestinian headdress. He, she thought, must be the “specialist” Feng had promised, a professional interrogator.

  “Ah!” the third man said in English, smiling broadly. “This, I suppose, is our subject?”

  “It is,” Feng replied. He looked at his watch. “You have eighteen hours to break her.”

  “Now, now, these things can’t be rushed. You of all people should know that, Major.”

  “Eighteen hours. I want her real name, who she works for, and in particular I want to know how much they know about our operations here.” Reaching out, he cupped Lia’s chin in his hand. “And then I want her to beg me to end her pain. Understand?”

  The man sighed, but he was still smiling. “I’ll see what I can do, Major. Although I really need more time with her than that for a thorough job.”

  “You should have no problem with this one,” Feng said. “Americans are so squeamish when it comes to torture. Look at how they cripple themselves, unable to carry out the simplest interrogation for fear of violating a prisoner’s rights! They expect the whole world to play by the rules!” He laughed, a harsh sound. “Do what you must, Doctor, but in eighteen hours we are leaving this island. Anyone who remains behind will die.”

  Releasing her chin, he stepped back. Azhar watched silently, scowling.

  Walking to Lia’s side, the interrogator placed his doctor’s bag on the metal table and opened it. One by one, he began removing various implements, holding them up to the light, turning each as he inspected it. A bone saw. A pair of pliers. Several clamps. An olive drab canvas roll opened to reveal a dozen different scalpels and lancets of various sizes held in place inside small pockets, along with forceps and several long needles and probes. Surgical retractors. Several implements she couldn’t even begin to name. He held up a wood-burning tool with a long electrical cord. “Do you have an electrical outlet in here?”

  “Over there by the light.”

  “Good.” He plugged the tool in and laid it on the table. “We’ll just get that heating for now. Are you gentlemen going to stay and watch?”

  Feng hesitated, then shook his head. “No. I must supervise the placement of the final … package outside. Call me if you get anything out of her.” Turning, he walked out of the chamber, followed by Azhar. The two guards remained, half hidden in the shadows behind the bright lights.

  “Well,” the man said. Did that smile never leave his face? “Just the two of us, then. And the guards, of course. Now … we can be businesslike about this. You can tell me what I want to know, immediately, truthfully, and without reservation. If you cooperate, it is possible I won’t even have to resort to the use of these various tools laid out for your inspection. You might even live. If you resist, you will die, and I promise you that it will take you a very long time to do so. Well … eighteen hours, at least, and, believe me, that can seem like a very long time indeed. So … we begin. What is your name?”

  Lia had been trained to face torture, and she’d faced it more than once in her career with the NSA. That time in North Korea …

  The important thing now was to spin things out as long as possible. The Tangos obviously were facing a deadline. They would push her hard, hoping to break her in a few hours.

  Yet, if the interrogation went true to form, they would spend at least some of that time engaged in psychological torture …

  They would do their best to terrify her, to try to get her to the breaking point simply through threats, suggestion, and terror. They probably wouldn’t start the really rough stuff for some hours—and might also resort to drugs.

  Her training had taught her that spinning things out, pretending to cooperate, even pretending to break, was the best strategy. Later, there might be nothing she could do but try to endure … but she could try to go along with her captors for now. The longer she could hold off the physical torture, the more time Rubens and Desk Three had to put together some sort of a rescue.

  She had to believe that help was coming. Had to.

  Lia knew that cooperation was her best strategy right now, but when she looked up into that obscenely grinning face, she found she couldn’t do it.

  “I asked you a question, woman. What is your name?”

  “Go fuck yourself, asshole,” Lia said.r />
  PRESIDENTIAL BRIEFING ROOM

  THE WHITE HOUSE, EAST WING

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  MONDAY, 1002 HOURS EDT

  Rubens checked through the final security point and walked past the Secret Service guards posted outside the massive red-oak doors. The room beyond was dominated by an immense mahogany table and a number of dark green chairs. General James, he saw, was already seated at the table. So were several other generals, Army, Air Force, and Marine, as well as a Navy admiral, several NSC staffers, the secretary of state and several members of her staff, the director of national intelligence, and a contingent from the CIA. Debra Collins, the Agency’s deputy director of operations, watched him coldly as he walked across the luxurious carpeting and took an empty chair next to her.

  “Well, Bill,” Collins said quietly, sat, “I hope you realize just how much trouble you’ve managed to stir up these past few days.”

  “And what would that be, Debra?”

  “Running gunfights in the streets of Dushanbe? Almost starting a war with the Russians? Kidnapping Russian nationals? Shooting down one of their helicopters? Shooting up one of their freighters on the high seas? Any of that ring a bell?”

  “The helicopter, as I understand it, was shot down by Indian aircraft, and it was downed on the Afghanistan side of the border.”

  “They were in hot pursuit of your people, Bill. You provoked them.”

  “They were trying to kill my people, Debra.”

  “And your people managed to kill quite a few of them—twenty or thirty, we think, all told. They also managed to kill a Lieutenant Colonel Pyotr Vasilyev of the FSB Vega Group. He was on the helicopter.”

  “That’s ancient history, Debra. Old news.”

  “Indeed. Today’s headlines appear to be all about the United States invading Spain. What the hell are you playing at, anyway?”

  “As you know well, we are trying to recover a number of tactical nuclear weapons now in terrorist hands. Ah! I wanted to thank you, especially, Debra.”

  She looked startled. “For what?”

  “Letting us use your conduit into Somalia. That worked very well.”

  “I just saw the report on the Yakutsk affair this morning. The Russians are screaming bloody murder, you know that?”

  “Let them. We have more serious concerns right now.”

  Further discussion was interrupted as a dark-suited man stepped into the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.”

  Everyone around the table stood as the President walked in, followed by more suits who kept pace behind him. He looked angry as he strode to the chair at the table’s head, slapped a manila folder on the table in front of him, and sat down. “General James? What the hell is going on? The pickle this morning says we’re about to invade Spain! The last I heard, they were our allies!”

  Technically, the term “pickle” was somewhat dated. Years ago, the President had received each morning a ten-page newsletter describing the overnight developments of five or six situations of concern around the world called the President’s Intelligence Checklist, abbreviated as PICkl. The Executive Office bureaucracy had changed over the years, however. Since 2005, the Agency no longer reported directly to the President, but through the director of national intelligence instead. Even so, one insider’s term for the CIA was still “the pickle factory” and special intelligence memos sent directly to the President were still refered to as pickles.

  James cleared his throat. “Mr. President, we have evidence that foreign terrorists are about to launch an attack, technically a nuclear attack, against the continental United States. It is imperative that we capture and secure the nuclear weapons they control before they can carry out this attack. The details are all laid out in the briefing I delivered to your office yesterday.”

  “David?” The President looked at Admiral David Blaine, the director of national intelligence. “What do you know about this?”

  “The intelligence was developed out of an ongoing operation carried out by the NSA, Mr. President. I was aware of some of the background … but these latest developments are all brand-new.”

  The President tapped the folder in front of him. “According to this, a small but secret bureau within the National Security Agency has been carving a path of destruction through south-central Asia, shot up a Russian cargo ship, and is now suggesting we carry out a Marine invasion of the Canary Islands. This is unacceptable! And I want the resignations of the people responsible on my desk this afternoon!”

  “Mr. President,” Rubens said, speaking into the sudden silence around the table. “There’s more to this than you’re hearing. There’s more here than cover-your-ass politics. We are talking about the very survival of the United States.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m the man whose resignation you want. William Rubens, NSA. And you’ll have my resignation, sir, effective the moment I know my people are out of danger. But, with respect, sir, you’d damned well better listen to what I have to say first.”

  There was no audible gasp from the others seated around the table, but the effect was much the same. The cold silence dragged on for long seconds. Then the President folded his hands on the table and leaned forward, pinning Rubens with a hard stare. “You have my undivided attention, Mr. Rubens. What do you have to say to me?”

  Rubens took a deep breath and began speaking.

  He left nothing out, though he restricted his statements to cold facts and ignored the speculation and theorizing that had followed the Haystack investigation from the beginning. Nor did he mention the problems that had dogged them—the interagency battle over limited satellite assets, for instance, or the delay resulting from the failure to get high-level clearance for the Yakutsk op. He did admit to the intelligence failure in Karachi, when the German deserter, Koch, had failed to tell them about the enemy flying nukes to Morocco.

  He concluded with a detailed report based on Lia’s recon along the Cumbre Vieja—of drilling rigs and helicopter flights from Morocco and something called Operation Wrath of God—along with a brief description of what the terrorists were probably trying to do.

  That was the point at which he deliberately violated everything he’d ever held dear about intelligence work and started lying to the President of the United States.

  GREEN AMBER ONE

  NORTHEAST RIM, SAN MARTIN CALDERA

  MONDAY, 1506 HOURS LOCAL TIME

  Charlie Dean kept crawling, moving slowly, keeping flat beneath his brick red tech-ghillie. It was painstaking and slow, but he was making progress, moving at last into the rugged ground above the eroded gully leading down into the northern half of the caldera. Lying beside a car-sized boulder, he studied the crater floor and surroundings carefully with his binoculars, transmitting everything he was seeing via satellite back to Fort Meade and the Art Room.

  From this vantage point, he could see the mouth of the cave Rubens mentioned in the briefing, all but invisible in the shadow of the overhang of the cliff above. The drilling rig itself was a good fifty yards north of the cave entrance. Even at that distance, the rumble of pumps and motors and the grind of the drill itself drowned out every other sound. They certainly wouldn’t hear him coming.

  With the sun well past the zenith, much of the crater floor was in deep shadow, which would make it easier for him to move to the cave mouth without the drilling workers seeing him. But he also saw a problem—two Tango sentries seated on a boulder ten yards from the cave. There was no possible way of reaching the opening without being seen.

  He would have to eliminate those sentries.

  That brought Dean face-to-face with a serious problem. Getting into that cave, grabbing Lia, and getting out … that was one thing. However, if he killed Tangos to pull it off, missing guards or dead bodies were certain to raise the alarm—and that would be deadly for the Marines now moving into position at each of the target craters along the Cumbre Vieja, deadly for Marine forces now at s
ea and preparing to land on La Palma, and quite possibly deadly for millions of people in the Americas and in Europe and Africa if the bad guys set off their bombs and those bombs did indeed generate a large tidal wave. Even if they didn’t, a lot of people would die on La Palma—civilians, Marines … and Lia.

  So Dean and Akulinin lay at the top of the caldera gully, watching. They attached certain SOPMOD units to their M4A1s, including sound suppressors screwed tightly over the muzzles of their weapons, and they snapped magazines loaded with special 5.56 mm subsonic ammunition into their receivers. They also swapped out the four-power telescopic sights for their SOPMOD ECOS-N CompM2s.

  Technically, the M4 was a carbine, not a rifle, and was not intended as a sniper weapon because a carbine’s short barrel length—in this case fourteen and a half inches—reduced weapon accuracy, but the CompM2 was a special, battery-powered sight that placed a red dot inside the sight directly on the weapon’s aim point. The unit’s accuracy would more than compensate for their not having a true sniper’s rifle, like his beloved M24 or the newer M40A3.

  Akulinin also attached his M203 grenade launcher beneath the barrel of his weapon. The CompM2 interfered with targeting with the 203’s leaf sight, but in this situation—shooting down into what was effectively a huge bowl—that wouldn’t be an issue. If they needed to start lobbing 40 mm grenades into the bottom of that hole, instinctive point-and-shoot would be good enough. Close enough for government work, as Ilya had said when they’d gone over the special-issue gear that morning at Rota.

  By the time they were done modifying their weapons, the M4s were a lot heavier. A standing joke about the military’s SOPMOD system had it that the basic unloaded M4 carbine weighed less than seven pounds … but by the time you finished attaching all the SOPMOD bells and whistles, the thing weighed more than an M249 SAW, a light machine gun weighing seventeen pounds. Not entirely true, Dean thought, hefting the weapon, rolling onto his belly, and taking aim, but amusing nonetheless. He was more concerned about the system’s complexity. The more bells and whistles you added to a weapons system, the more likely it was that something critical could fail—and Murphy’s Law ruled that a failure would always happen at the worst possible time.